Franco Moschino was a fashion genius with a wicked sense of humor, and basically a soothsayer for trends the rest of the world only caught up to decades later. In 1988, he dropped I Complici (The Accomplices), a collection that was less about clothes and more about his merry gang of everyday partners-in-crime, from coworkers to friends. The point was to honor the beautifully imperfect, gloriously quirky humans around him, because perfection (except for perfectly cut clothes, obviously) was boring to him. Fast-forward to today, and Adrian Appiolaza is trying to keep that same cheeky, mischievous spirit alive, as we saw in Moschino’s pre-fall and men’s collections.
Appiolaza said he wanted to “desaturate” the ’80s mood, imbuing the collection with a wit that spoke directly to today’s reality. Not only through inclusivity, addressed in the casting of coworkers and friends of every age and condition (at a time when fashion seems to have forgotten the issue while the outside world finds it more urgent and painful than ever), but also through a subtle, slightly bittersweet commentary woven between the collection’s many fashion propositions.
Take the Smiley, for example, one of Moschino’s most enduring graphic emblems of cheerfulness. “But what does it mean now?” asked Appiolaza. “Can you still smile in times like these?” He didn’t want to get rid of the smile, but he refused to let it remain naïvely upbeat. So he created a skirt entirely made of smileys that flip upside down when it moves. One step, and optimism suddenly turns on itself. That idea expanded into a series of T-shirts, puffers and sweatshirts with inverted smileys: today, smiling isn’t really about happiness anymore. It’s about survival, about holding on to a sense of humor as a coping mechanism. As the Italian saying goes, ridere per non piangere—laughing so as not to cry.
Camouflage, too, was “desaturated,” this time of its military bravado, and reimagined through aerial photographs of green pastures, fields, and forests. Same camo idea, just far less aggressive and much more optimistic. The puzzle print splashed across sweats and T-shirts came with a simple explanation: “Reality is puzzling, fashion is puzzling, and there always seems to be a missing piece that’s impossible to find.” Consider it wearable confusion, fit for the zeitgeist.
A patchwork made from every Moschino label, from the house’s beginnings to today, worked both as a tribute to its history and a sly jab at logomania, because if logos are inevitable, they might as well tell a story. And then there was the evening gown printed with a rural landscape complete with cows and chickens, worn by a longtime friend of the house who swapped urban chaos for country life. “Now,” said Appiolaza, “she can wear her two great passions: fashion and nature.”
Beyond the irony, the collection carried a more streamlined attitude. Appiolaza cautiously referred to it as “minimal,” immediately pulling the brakes. “I don’t want to say minimal, because there’s nothing minimal about it,” he said, “but there’s something cleaner.” Cleaner, in this case, didn’t mean quieter or tamer. It meant editing without erasure, stripping away excess while keeping the punchline intact. It’s a Moschino that felt lighter on its feet, more precise in its irony, and more deliberate in its meaningful choice of words.
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